DHS Still Pretending 15 Assaults A Month Is Evidence Of Widespread Violence Against ICE Officers
from the rookie-numbers dept
When you’re shooting for 3,000 arrests a day, it seems kind of pathetic to complain about being mildly bruised a few times a week.
DHS and ICE have constantly used a supposed massive increase in assaults on ICE officers to justify ICE’s tactics: the masks, the unmarked vehicles, the refusal to present IDs or warrants, and untargeted raids of any place the DHS (and its assembly of federal law enforcement officers from the FBI, ICE, CBP, HSI, US Marshals Service, ATF, DEA, and even the fucking IRS) feels its might find some Latino-looking foreigners.
ICE and DHS insist on using only percentages in their press releases and official statements on preferred government jawbone, X. It’s far more impressive to say there’s been a 700% increase in assaults than to say there have been 69 more assaults on ICE officers during the first six months of this year as compared to the same time period last year.
Another 14 assaults have allegedly occurred, which means the increase in assaults now tops 800%. This will only alarm the willfully ignorant, which is pretty much who it’s meant to alarm: the chorus of bigots who fully support an administration composed mainly of bigots.
But those numbers are pathetic, especially given how many officers are in the field. ICE has about 20,000 officers (although not all of them do field word) and is being assisted by another few thousand federal officers pulled from several agencies, in addition to the another few thousand military troops. And yet, as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick points out on Bluesky, regular police officers are being assaulted far more frequently than ICE officers and no one’s issuing daily press releases about that:
As this post points out, NYPD officers have been assaulted nearly 200 times per month since the beginning of the year. That’s according to the NYPD’s stats, which are reported in its usual alarmist fashion by the NY Post. According to that reporting, NYC law enforcement officers have been assaulted 970 times since the beginning of the year. Even at its pre-pandemic lows, NYPD officers were getting assaulted far more often (595 times in five months in 2019) than this supposed War on ICE that federal officials keep tweeting about.
And let’s not forget that the word “assault” is extremely slippery when used to reference attacks on officers. According to the government’s own representations and reports about “violence” perpetrated against federal officers (including ICE), the term covers everything from actual violence resulting in injury to things that just might be mildly annoying for federal cops.
Among more than a dozen other allegations facing protesters, federal officers say one person shined a “high-powered handheld laser” in their eyes and that people have kicked tear gas canisters back at them. One criminal complaint says a protester “fell back and donkey-kicked’ (an agent) in the shin.”
While there have been an extremely small number of truly violent attacks on immigration enforcement officers, there’s been far more incidental contact — something that has been provoked by officers seeking to escalate situations, as well as by officers who look more like criminals than cops when they carry out raids and arrests.
The amount of ICE activity has increased exponentially over the past six months. Assaults on officers have only increased incrementally, even given the expansive definition of “assault” law enforcement officers deploy to generate criminal charges against people who have done nothing more than come into contact with ICE against their will.
And that’s why ICE and DHS officials will continue to use the percentage, rather than the actual numbers, when issuing press releases and public statements. 830% sounds impressive. Ninety-three total alleged assaults — against a combined force seeking to perform 3,000 arrests per day — sounds like a rounding error.
Filed Under: dhs, ice, immigration, kristi noem, mass deportation, trump administration
Comments on “DHS Still Pretending 15 Assaults A Month Is Evidence Of Widespread Violence Against ICE Officers”
10 assaults on 20k ICE officers is 0.05%. With theses 14 new cases, 93 total, it’s now 0.47%. So it’s a 0.42% increase.
Well, there is plenty other ways to calculate things when you don’t know what you’re calculating.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
What the sh## is this?
You’re defending attacking federal officers? What does this have to do with tech?
Re:
A good chunk of the current regime should be shipped off to the Hague and subsequently shot. Stormtroopers included.
Re: Re:
No they shouldn’t. Let’s not provide the uniformed thugs with any excuse for their actions other than what they already trot out, huh?
Re:
Door’s to your left. 👋
Re: Re:
You’re expecting them to make a move to the left? Dream on.
Re:
Do you imagine these fragile men go home after a day of brutalizing and traumatizing undocumented immigrants and US citizens and write in their journals about how the super mean victims of their violence resisted their human rights abuses?
Damn, you got Tim dead to rights there. The propaganda ministry hasn’t approved Techdirt writers to deviate from tech coverage that praises the utopian techbro capitalist agenda. You should have federal officers sent out to seize the website. Freedom of speech is only for shareholders and party members after all!
Re:
Federal officers? No. Self proclaimed enemy combatants to the public? Yes.
Re:
I hope you’re equally livid with Fox News for not living up to their name.
Re:
Actually, Techdirt doesn’t defend anyone attacking others, especially federal officers attacking other civilians. Thanks for playing.
Also, the definition of assault could mean anything to these people. “He said mean things to my face, it’s assault!”
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Big Mad
Looks like the left is trying to justify violence yet again.
Re:
Only the right is trying to justify violence by ICE.
Re:
Fascist bootlicker thinks people fighting back against masked unidentified thugs is unjustified violence
Re:
Hahaha.
You want be torture children and then whine about how you get treated.
If you don’t want violence, don’t start a war.
Re:
You seem to be confused; ICE created the justification by acting like the Gestapo and kidnapping people off the streets without ID, without badges, without uniforms, without warrants, and without accountability.
Including the unlawful detention of American citizens.
Only 15 a month? I’m disappointed.
Re:
So. According to you, all these illegal immigrants are extremely dangerous to the point that removing them is worth suspending the constitution.
By that logic, basically nothing is happening to ice officers in conditions where they are dealing with super criminal cartel members.
Re:
Looks like the koby is being a bad-faith aggressively ignorant shitweasel yet again.
Re:
Interesting. I didn’t know that Tim was the entire “left”. “Come see the violence inherent in the system!” “Help, help, ICE is being repressed!”
Re:
“Looks like the left is trying to justify violence yet again.”
Re:
Tim says “This will only alarm the willfully ignorant…” and Koby dutifully leaps into action.
Re:
Do tell, which violence exactly are they justifying? Is the violence of using masked kidnap squads to abduct people to foreign gulags or some other kind of violence?
Re:
Just because you think you “see” your hallucinations doesn’t mean they’re real.
DHS is probably concealing those numbers, among other reasons, to prevent friction with state and local law enforcement. They’d probably have a “negative reaction” if they saw that ICE was throwing this kind of tantrum over just 15 assaults per month, when they operate on such a scale. Law enforcement is very much the realm of hypermasculinity-driven egomania, and so I could see ICE butting heads with locals if the latter had a firm understanding of what was occurring.
As much as law enforcement likes using “divide and conquer” tactics on any group unwilling to support them with sufficient fervor, it’s fun seeing them on the receiving end for a change.
Meanwhile journalists have been seriously injured, and those that ice has kidnapped are almost dying.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
“The chorus of bigots who fully support an administration composed mainly of bigots. ”
Regime.
Re:
Just as it’s foolish to claim ‘regime’ is an incorrect or impermissible word, it’s foolish to claim that ‘administration’ is wrong or impermissible and we must use ‘regime’. Both are accurate accurate descriptors for the people who dictate and lead the government in the USA and their many subordinates who act to carry out the dictum of those leaders.
Re:
Write a userscript to change the word or stop complaining.
Re: Re:
You appear to fundamentally misapprehend the goal here.
Re:
This is “I only support free speech if I agree with the speech” levels of nagging.
Re: Re:
1 comment per article is nagging? Pull the other one.
Re: Re: Re:
Yes. It is.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s both spam amd trolling, and fully deserves the flags for both.
Re: Re: Re:
A reasonable person would comment once, saying something civil, like: “I disagree with the use of the term ‘administration.’ I personally would use ‘regime’ in this scenario.”
And then acknowledge that word choice is up to the author and never mention it again.
Re: Re:
just call a spade a spade.
Republican lawmakers are traitors who have broken their oaths.
Ice are an occupying force that has declared all civilians their enemy.
Trump is a dictator attempting to destroy the USA and gain personal power and wealth.
Let’s stop whitewashing them and what they are like they are a nice dad who accidentally shot the brains out of an innocent person while on his patriotic job as an officer of the law, or a poor sports playing young boy with a bright future who made a mistake and helped gang rape a woman.
Re: Re: Re:
It’s not whitewashing to call the Trump administration the Trump administration. You can use whatever colorful (and often accurate) words you want to describe them, but they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive with the use of other words.
There is more context, such as the fact that trying to control others with your particular narrative, whether it’s accurate or not, is its own offense to values such as human rights and freedom of speech. If you want to control what is said or what words are used, start your own website/blog/substack/mastodon account and say it yourself.
Shooting yourself in the foot and then blaming the one who sold you the bullet
‘Just because our agents dress like kidnappers and act like kidnappers while treating people worse than livestock is no reason for people to get violent when they or someone near them is being kidnapped!’
They're AMBUSHING ICE agents
There were three incidents in the past month where ice agents were ambushed and shot at, you idiot. One seemed to be a coordinated group effort.
Re: An obvious satirical joke
What were they wearing when they were attacked and what were they doing at the time? It sounds like the ICE was asking for it, showing up dressed like cartel hitmen without showing any identification or badges and kidnapping people.
Re: Maybe if they weren't running around like a masked gestapo
I might give a f**k, I predicted that such things were inevitable given the way they’re handling things.
Re: please read
They do mention in the article that there is a tiny number of violent attacks. But if the admin stuck to those actual issues it would look tiny and inconsequential.
Re:
Perhaps the ICE agents were mistaken for members of some dangerous Latin American gang. That happens a lot these days.
Re:
“You morons. You’re running around in ski masks trying to blow things up? What did you think was gonna happen?!”